Home
by quietanalyst
Summary: Set after Gavin Featherly RIP. Tim is not happy that Gavin's parents haven't heard of him.


Home

There was no sign of Tim when Gavin got home. The flat was quiet and dark but Tim's keys were in their usual spot by the front door so, disheartened but not surprised, Gavin realised Tim had gone to bed rather than wait up for him.

It had been three days since Gavin's return to Whitbury after being kidnapped by pirates, three days since he had turned up to his own funeral and three days of dealing with his parents and Mr Brittas being in the same place. Combined with the rather tedious amount of admin created simply be not being as dead as expected, there'd been little chance to spend much of those three days with Tim. And he really wanted to do nothing other than spend time with Tim, alone. Preferably curled up together, just the two of them, locked away from the rest of the world and forgetting any of this had ever happened.

But he doubted whether Tim wanted to spend any time alone with him right now. Tim had so far been worryingly quiet on the subject of Gavin's parents and it was clear that, despite everything, they still didn't know about their relationship. Tim had been making himself absent whenever they were around and pointedly refusing to discuss it when they weren't. Although Gavin was oddly grateful, he knew he was paying the price for it, judging by Tim's increasingly bad mood. He'd been especially angry when Gavin had told him that his father had arranged a family meal for that evening. Even Gavin's protestations that he didn't want to go hadn't helped and he'd spent the whole meal both desperately wanting to go home and dreading it.

Gavin wandered into the living room and collapsed heavily onto the couch, not bothering to turn on a light. He could see the bedroom door from where he sat and peered at the bottom of it to see if the light was on, but no, just darkness. Tim definitely hadn't waited up. Gavin sagged and, not wanting to be left alone with his thoughts, groped for the TV remote. With one click, the TV blared into life, far louder than he was expecting and he scrambled to turn it off before it woke Tim.

Too late. As the noise of the TV died away, Gavin heard movement from the bedroom and a couple of seconds later the door opened, spilling a dim light into the room. Tim came out, looking bleary, his hair messy from sleep. He was wearing the T-shirt of Gavin's he always borrowed when he was ill or depressed, or simply on the tail end of a bad day of Brittas. He'd been wearing it almost constantly since Gavin had got back for quite a while before that judging by its current dishevelled condition. Gavin couldn't help feeling a twinge of guilt over what that meant about Tim's mental state.

Still half-asleep, it took Tim a few moments to register Gavin, but his expression turned to a scowl as soon as he did. "Oh, it's you."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you…" Gavin said, standing up and trying to smile apologetically.

"Nice of you to think of me." Tim glared at Gavin for a few seconds, before shaking his head, then stalked past Gavin towards the kitchen, pushing the door hard on his way in. Gavin winced as it hit the wall with a bang. It banged again as Tim slammed it shut behind him.

Tim was still angry with him then. Deciding it would probably be better to try and make amends sooner rather than later, he followed, but at the dark look Tim gave him as he entered, he stayed in the doorway, leaning on the frame, not quite daring to go any further. Tim was standing by the sink, just out of reach, drinking a glass of water. The artificial fluorescent lighting seemed to highlight how worn out he looked, and made Gavin feel even worse.

"My parents are leaving tomorrow, flying back to Fiji," he ventured.

"Good."

"So we can get back to normal again and -"

"Normal?" Tim let out an indignant snort. "Oh, you mean I get to exist again. That's nice."

There was such cold anger behind Tim's sarcasm that Gavin almost gave up, for now, but experience told him that given time, Tim would only get angrier. "Timmy, that's not what -" he said, stepping into the room and reaching out to touch Tim's arm, but Tim jerked away.

"Don't," he said harshly. He slammed his glass down, hard enough to spill water on the counter, and dodged around Gavin to get back to the kitchen door. "I'm going back to bed," he muttered as he left the room. Gavin

"Tim, please!" Gavin called after him, but the only response was the slamming of the bedroom door. He sagged, leaning heavily against the counter, and swore under his breath. He knew that this was his own fault, that he deserved Tim's current attitude towards him. He wished, as he seemed to often find himself wishing, that he better at this, better at being open, better at not upsetting Tim but he didn't know where to start.

Resolving to at least try anyway, he followed Tim to the bedroom, gently opening the door and edging into the room. Tim sitting on the edge of the bed, his head hanging forward, his hands clasped around the back of his neck. The only light in the room was an orange glow from the bedside lamp, faint but enough to highlight the dampness around Tim's eyes as he sat up to glare angrily up at Gavin before returning to staring at the floor in front of him.

"Tim, I -" he began but stalled; there was nothing he could say that seemed adequate enough.

It didn't matter as Tim didn't give him a chance to continue. "I thought you were dead," he said, quietly, but his voice was full of emotion. "I thought you'd killed yourself and left me. You were gone and I had to be here, alone, with everything that reminded me of you."

"Oh, Timmy -" Gavin made a move towards the bed, wanting to sit by Tim, to hug him, but, as he had in the kitchen, Tim immediately moved backwards, further away from him, and Gavin decided it was better to stay where he was.

"When your parents arrived," Tim went on, his voice becoming darker, angrier and his eyes boring into Gavin now. "I thought maybe that would help, being with the other people who loved you, and instead, all I found out is that you lied. That you don't consider me part of your life. That I wasn't worth mentioning at all!"

"Tim, it's not -" It's not you that's not worth it, it's them, Gavin wanted to say but Tim didn't give him the chance.

"They organised the funeral, they got to talk about you, they got to share everyone's sympathy, while I was here with nothing… nothing except knowing you are ashamed of me!"

Tim's last statement was too much for Gavin. "I'm not ashamed of you!" he wailed.

Tim snorted in response. "All I got was everyone thinking I'd gone mad, when I told them you were alive, because why would what I say matter! I started to think they were right, that you were still dead, even after I'd heard from you. I can't trust you to ever tell me the truth so maybe you'd even lie about being alive."

Faced with the look of complete betrayal Tim gave him as he said this, Gavin had never hated himself so much as he did at that moment.

"Did you ever actually intend to tell them about me?"

Gavin blushed. "I tried…"

Tim shook his head. "I don't believe you."

Realising that he could, at least here, prove he was telling the truth, Gavin went to his side of the bed, trying to ignore the way Tim flinched slightly as he came closer. Kneeling down, he reached in the dark space under the bed and pulled out an old battered shoebox. "I tried," he repeated as he held it out towards Tim, who looked at it with mistrust. "Take it."

With obvious reluctance, Tim took the box from Gavin, set it on the bed in front of him and opened it. Gavin hovered near the bed, almost holding his breath with nerves, as Tim slowly and uncertainly rifled through the contents of the box. It was full of letters. Some of them were in stamped, addressed envelopes, ready to be sent; others were on loose sheets of paper, unfinished. Those with addresses showed that they were mostly intended for Gavin's parents, but a few deeper into the box were addressed to a Miss J. Pelham-Young. The dates on the letters showed that they stretched back over almost a decade. Tim chose one of the unsealed envelopes, unfolded the letter it contained and read it in silence.

_"Dear Mum and Dad,_

_ "I know you were not expecting to hear from me so soon since my last letter but I am writing again because there is something I need to tell you, something that I should maybe tell you face to face, but I think, when you read this, you will understand why I cannot._

_ "I know you have always hoped that I would find someone and get married, that I would settle down and be someone you could be proud of. I know that has always meant a lot to you and that you are disappointed in me for being alone._

_ "I want you to tell you that I am not alone, that I met someone wonderful who I love with all my heart. His name is Tim and we have been together for almost ten years._

_ "I know that you will find this hard, if not impossible, to understand and I know that you won't certainly approve. I am sorry for that, but it doesn't matter. I want to be with him because he means more to me than anything. I just hope that maybe you will be able to find it possible to be happy for me."_

_ "With love, _  
_ "Gavin."_

Tim remained silent after he had read the letter, and didn't look at Gavin, but the hardness in his expression had softened. With a slight nod of his head, more to himself than Gavin, he gently refolded the letter into its envelope and placed it on the bed to the side of the box, before taking another letter, from deeper inside the box this time.

Gavin hovered by the bed, watching nervously as Tim continued to read more of the letters. Tim took his Tim to go through the box, still not making any comment; Gavin, as he stood, started to feel the past few days catch up with him and he felt like he was swaying with exhaustion. Feeling like he was taking a risk, he sat down on his side of the bed facing Tim. To his great relief, Tim didn't move away this time and Gavin shuffled across the bed towards him, as close as he dared but not close enough that they were touching.

Eventually, Tim put the letters back in the box, putting the lid back and staring at it for moment, looking more pensive than angry. Finally, he looked up at Gavin. "You wrote these?"

"Yes."

"But you never sent them?"

"No." Gavin paused. When Tim didn't say anything further, he added, "I never had the courage."

"But why didn't you tell me?" Tim said, sounding more tired than angry. "It's not -" He sighed. "I'm not angry that they didn't know but that you lied to me. Again. You told me they knew but they didn't even know my name!"

"I didn't think you'd understand." Tim looked like he was about to object to this, but Gavin keep talking, not allowing him the chance to interrupt. "Your family _like_ you. You could do anything, be anyone, and they'd still love you, because you're you, because who wouldn't?My family…" Gavin broke off, and sighed heavily, before continuing, "My parents are not like that. For them, especially my dad, everything is conditional. My life was, is, expected to be a certain way; anything else and I'm a disappointment who isn't worthy him."

"He can't be that bad!"

"See!" Gavin sagged back against the headboard and stared blankly ahead. "This evening was the first time we've had a meal together as a family in twenty years; this is first time we've all been in the same country in about ten. Alice and Peter both moved abroad just to get away from them, well, from him."

"You make him sound like Brittas."

Gavin gave an empty laugh. "Worse."

"Worse than Brittas?" Tim turned to face Gavin, looking and sounding incredibly dubious.

Gavin shrugged, "Mr Brittas is at least trying to make people happy. My dad doesn't want people to be happy, he just wants them to conform," he said, bitterly. "It drove us all away in the end. Peter left when he was eighteen - I was eleven. Dad was absolutely adamant he'd join the army, follow in his footsteps, and Peter just didn't want that, so he left and never came back. It wasn't that he wanted to do anything ridiculous - he's an accountant! But he wasn't doing what Dad wanted him to do and that caused so many problems. Alice went a couple of years later. She got pregnant when she was seventeen - on purpose, I think - and he threw her out."

"Seriously?"

Gavin nodded. "They do know about you - Alice and Peter, I mean. Alice thinks it's rather subversive of me; doing something I know they'd hate and just not telling them."

"Subversive? You?" Tim laughed as he said this but with a fond smile. It felt like the first time Tim had looked at Gavin with something other than anger since he'd got back and Gavin was so relieved to see it that he couldn't be offended. He smiled back and replied with a quiet "yeah".

"But your parents have no idea at all? Not even about you?" Tim asked.

"They had suspicions, once…" Gavin tailed off, shuddering at the memory of it.

"Bad?" Tim shifted on the bed so that he was facing Gavin, looking more concerned than anything.

"Very," Gavin sighed again. "There was a guy in the gym where I had a Saturday job when I was seventeen. He was a bit older, one of the pool attendants."

Tim raised an eyebrow, "You have a type, then."

Gavin blushed. "We flirted a bit. It was never that serious, really, but there was one time where we kissed, in the public changing rooms, and we were seen. I don't know who by but it was reported to the management, who didn't want the gym to get that kind of reputation, and he lost his job. I wasn't the first person he'd been caught with. He told them that he'd approached me, to avoid us both getting into trouble." Gavin smiled at the memory of the kindness of this but it quickly faded, "But dad didn't entirely believe that. He was so disappointed, no, more disgusted really, that he couldn't bear to have me in the house. I was sent away to stay with my aunt."

Tim responded with a quiet "bloody hell" and reached for Gavin's hand, wrapping their fingers together. Gavin squeezed back, gratefully; their first contact in days making him feel so much better.

"After losing Peter and Alice, Mum didn't handle it well. She didn't get out a bed for a month. He blamed me for that, of course. It was only after I met Jenny that I was allowed back and Mum was so pleased when we got engaged."

"That's why you proposed to Jenny?"

"Yes. It just seemed to fix everything… at the time."

"Did you love her? Jenny?" It wasn't the first time Tim had ever asked him this but it was the first time without anger and Gavin hesitated, pushing down his immediate instinct to deny and say whatever was easiest to appease Tim. The instinct to avoid causing Tim pain. The instinct that had gotten him into this mess.

"I liked her" he said, eventually; a response far away from his usual "no". Tim stiffened slightly and his grip on Gavin's hand increased, but he didn't say anything. Gavin closed his eyes to avoid having to look at Tim's expression as he spoke. "We were good friends, at the start, and I thought that would be enough, or at least better than being alone. It didn't occur to me that I would ever have any better option than marrying a woman I at least could be friends with, if I didn't want to be completely alone and disowned by my family. It didn't occur to me that I could fall in love, or actually be happy."

Tim still said nothing but Gavin became aware that he was sitting closing now and their hands were more gently entwined. Gavin couldn't bring himself open his eyes; somehow the possibility that Tim might not be angry made it harder. He wished he was better at this, at being open. It came so naturally to Tim, being honest and just himself with everyone he met, and he was so charming that it usually made whoever it was immediately like him in return. It was what had made Gavin like him; it was what had made Gavin love him; and what was also what made Gavin feel like he didn't really deserve Tim.

"When I met you, suddenly there was this world where I did get to be happy with someone amazing - something I'd never even dared to dream. I didn't want to tell them because I knew that if I did, if my dad knew, then he'd ruin it. So, instead I didn't mention you at all, so that you would be mine, just mine, out of their reach." Gavin finally opened his eyes and Tim's face was inches from his. Gavin looked deep into his tear-stung eyes and, struggling to keep his voice steady, said quietly, "It's not because I'm ashamed of you."

"But you wrote them the letters?"

"Well, I knew it was important to you, so I keep thinking I should try… I could just never bring myself to send them. I'm sorry, Timmy, I really am," Gavin finished quietly.

Tim nodded, and blinked fiercely, causing some tears to splash down onto his cheek, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. With a searching look that Gavin couldn't tell whether was positive or negative, he sad "But you didn't tell me."

"I didn't know how. I thought you'd hate me."

"You're an idiot," Tim replied with a half-smile.

"I know."

And suddenly, Tim was on top of him, kissing him, softly but insistently, pushing Gavin back into the pillows. Relief flooded through Gavin and he kissed Tim back, hard, wrapping his arms around him, pulling him as close as possible. He was disappointed, then, when Tim pulled away and sat up slightly, trapping Gavin beneath him as he gently leaned on Gavin's chest and looked steadily at him.

"Your parents are leaving tomorrow?"

Gavin immediately tensed. Tim's forgiveness clearly had a cost. "Yes," he said slowly, then sighed. "Tim, I'm not sure telling them just before they get on a plane is a good idea."

"Oh, relax," Tim said, looking vaguely amused at Gavin's mild panic. "I just want to know when I have you to myself again." He paused, and then added gently, "You don't have to tell them… if you don't want to."

"What? I thought you wanted -"

Tim shook his head. "Not if it would make you that miserable. I don't mind that they don't know. I just wish you'd told me the truth."

"I'm know - I'm sorry," Gavin wasn't sure those two words "I'm sorry" did enough to convey the mix of guilt and relief he was feeling. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Well, that's good, because you are telling Brittas."

Gavin grimaced with horror at the thought of that conversation. "Couldn't I just agree to let you tell him?" he ventured.

"No." Tim said firmly. "He wouldn't believe me. He'd just think I'm taking the piss. It has to be you."

Gavin thought about this and conceded that Tim had a point. "Okay," he agreed, with a resolute nod. "I'll tell him."

"This side of the millennium."

"Yes."

"Good." Tim kissed him again, too quickly for Gavin to respond, before sliding off Gavin to curl up against his side; his head leaning heavily on Gavin's shoulder. "Because I'm not going through this again next time he nearly gets you killed."

"I hope we never have to go through this again." Gavin slid down the bed to look into Tim's eyes, wrapping his arms around his waist as he did so he could once again pulling him as close as he could. "I missed you. When I was tied up on that boat, I didn't think of anything other than being right here, with you. I didn't think about my parents, or Brittas, or the centre - I just thought about you."

Tim's his arms tightened around Gavin, "I was only thinking about you too." His expression became serious. "I'm glad you're not dead."

"That's good - I was being to wonder."

"That's not funny," Tim replied, but he was smiling. "I love you."

Gavin smiled back. "I love you too," and he kissed Tim, finally feeling that he was home. 


End file.
